Monday, November 7, 2011

Interscholastic athletics are an essential part of creating well-rounded students. Athletics give students an opportunity to learn about sportsmanship and teamwork while enhancing their level of fitness. Athletics can also help students develop socially by giving them a chance to interact with other people and by increasing their self-confidence. . I know that when I was in high school, joining the varsity swim team brought me out of my shell and was a major factor in making me the person I am today by making me more confident in myself. Athletics provide a healthy outlet for stress and frustration and help to keep students out of trouble. If a student really cares about their sport and their team, and if they have goals they want to accomplish, they’re less likely to get mixed up with drugs and alcohol, and less likely to get in trouble in school because they know that all of these things could impact their ability to participate.

As a coach, my job goes far beyond just writing workouts for my athletes to complete. My job is to motivate my athletes to do their best and to always work hard, both on and off the field. My high school swim coach is the model of a great coach that I strive to achieve. He could always get us fired up and motivated to make it through a hard workout or a hard set. He always stressed that each and every one of his athletes was the best person they could be. When report cards came out, if you have any grades under a C, you didn’t swim in the next meet. It didn’t matter if you were the fastest kid on the team or the slowest, or if it would cost us the meet, he always stuck to his guns. In line with being the best we could be, he also insisted that all of his athletes be gentlemen and that we always show good sportsmanship. At meets, no matter what the other team was acting like, we always kept our composure and acted professionally.

My goal as a coach is to instill these same values into all of my athletes so that I can help them be the best athletes and people that they can be.

The point of physical education is to improve the minds and bodies of our students and to teach them how to be active and healthy for their entire lives. Too often in our society is physical education viewed in a negative light. Physical education is historically a class of segregation; the “jocks” throwing red rubber balls at the “nerds.” This is the exact opposite of what PE should be. PE should be about teaching all students how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. As a physical educator, it’s my job to ensure that I pass on my love of physical activity to my students.

An ideal physical education program would be planned out from grades K-12 so that there is no redundancy. Rather than playing basketball every winter for their entire school career, students should be taught a variety of sports and activities so that they can discover what they love and have a passion for. My ideal physical education curriculum involves teaching young students basic motor skills and movement patterns while developing their coordination. Once students start to reach the end of their elementary school careers and head into the middle school, the focus should switch to teaching a variety of competitive sports so that the students can find one they’re interested in and can join interscholastic athletics in middle school. Different competitive sports should be taught until 9th or 10th grade at which point the focus should switch to lifelong fitness activities. Since a lot of students don’t move onto compete in intercollegiate athletics, it’s important to teach them how to stay healthy and active on their own, without a coach or teacher telling them what to do.

It is my goal to develop students who can enjoy the challenge of interscholastic athletics during their school years and can maintain a health-enhancing level of fitness when they are out of school. By developing well-rounded, extremely active students, I’ll be helping them stay healthy, live longer, and grow as human beings.

The purpose of education is to open up the minds of the students and motivate them to learn and grow as human beings. This is accomplished through a well-rounded and well planned curriculum that exposes the students to as many new ideas and experiences as possible. By learning these new ideas and living these experiences, the students will be able to grow as individuals. It is the duty of the educators and of the school staff to construct this curriculum so that the students are motivated to learn and so that the curriculum challenges the students. This curriculum should also treat all subjects equally. Math, History, Physical Education, Science, English, etc. should all have an equal part in our schools.

In my mind, the biggest enemy to a good education is a negative classroom climate. As a former socially awkward teenager, I can attest to the fact that the majority of “disengaged students” are only that way because they feel uncomfortable in the classroom. If a student is afraid to raise their hand to ask a question, or afraid to answer a question asked by the teacher, or afraid to participate in PE because of the other kids, then this student isn’t getting all that they can out of their education and because of this their education is going to suffer. The biggest part of creating a positive classroom climate is teaching students that everybody is different and everyone has different abilities in different subject areas. The “jocks” who make fun of the “nerd” because he can’t hit a baseball wouldn’t like it if that student made fun of them for not being able to do Calculus. The teachers need to help the students understand that even though everybody isn’t at the same ability level in every facet of life, every student is trying their hardest and rather than making fun of someone if they can’t do something, you should help them so that they can learn and improve themselves.

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About Me

My name is Mike Sorrentino. I'm a senior Phys. Ed major at SUNY Cortland. I'm on the varsity swim team at Cortland and I'm an avid triathlete. I'm an extremely active person and hopefully I'll be able to pass on my love of exercise to my students.